Inquisitor 1526: Inner Turmoil by Harribobs

28 comments on “Inquisitor 1526: Inner Turmoil by Harribobs”

1. Stumbled across this posting while waiting for another. For me, I fear this kind of puzzle may have to be for another lifetime. Kudos. To setter and blogger.

2. I thought this was amazing – puts Harribobs in pole position for consecutive PotYs. Having said that, I found it painfully difficult and it took me a full week, including a couple of lengthy sessions, to complete. The clues were on the tricky side and made vastly more so by the different modes of entry, especially the jumbled ones (and if there was a short cut, I certainly didn’t find it!) I’d found the ‘diagonals’ part of the instruction relatively early on, but couldn’t make sense of the rest of it for a long time and was sure I’d made a mistake somewhere. Then when I eventually had the instruction worked out and an almost the complete grid I made things even harder for myself as it didn’t occur to me to sort the diagonals into alphabetical order (why would it – that clearly couldn’t be possible!) So I set out trying to puzzle out possible words working in from the top right and bottom left. I was making some progress in the NE corner but was struggling in the SW as I couldn’t find any possible word that fitted 28A. I finally took a step back and realised that the diagonals I had managed to sort were all alphabetical – so, as Hi says, WOW!

3. Incredibly satisfying when all the sorted diagonals produced real words – though in my case with a little hiccup regarding one letter I’d entered incorrectly – but the initial grid fill was really quite incredibly difficult. I’m not sure I could manage one of these every week, but this was most definitely a tour de force.

4. I have to admit that found this so fiddly and frustrating to solve that it was more pain than pleasure. I don’t like jumbled entries at the best of times, and in this case the idea seemed to be “let’s throw in as many obstacles as possible to make it more difficult”. Luckily I cottoned on to the alphabetical sorting quite quickly but got in rather a mess as I had one wrong answer.

   There was indeed a WOW moment when I finished, as the incredible cleverness of the construction became apparent and the reason for so many jumbles became clear. One can’t help but admire anybody who can come up with something this ingenious. POTY though? Not for me I’m afraid – for all the dazzling tricks the setter managed to achieve, the solving process of a puzzle has to be enjoyable as well as its final completion.

5. I managed to cold solve several clues but only actually enter / part-enter a handful of them. I abandoned ship over the weekend and then tried to assist Terrier instead. He’d got the message to sort the grid but we couldn’t work out what that meant. I went down one blind alley by suggesting that the instruction in the blurb to make the grid ‘less chaotic’ might mean erasing the letters of CHAOTIC (the presence of several Cs made this seem a realistic possibility) but that wasn’t it.

   Very impressive construction and well done to those that completed it.

6. I feel no shame in admitting that the final element of this puzzle completely defeated me.  I feel a sense of achievement in managing to fill the grid correctly.  After that, despite deciphering the instruction, I simply had no idea of how to go about sorting the diagonals, thinking that I was required to produce one or more words from the letters in each diagonal.  As I’ve only been attempting to solve the Inquisitor for less than a year, I shall put this down to experience.  Many thanks for the very clear explanations in the blog.

7. I’m with cruciverbophile (post 4) – I didn’t find this much fun at all. I can admire the cleverness of Harribob’s puzzle, but I didn’t enjoy solving.  Should 42 Across have been described as ‘cycled’ rather than ‘jumbled’?

8. I gave up on this on at least three occasions before finding myself drawn back to the solve and eventually completing the grid after a week’s effort. After trying to re-order the diagonals to make real words I stumbled into ordering them into alphabetical order. Unfortunately I’d made a mistake in just one entry (only found when I came here) and couldn’t find the theme word. I’d convinced myself that I would be looking for something like “metamorphic” to describe the process which goes on within a moth’s or butterfly’s pupa so admit to being somewhat underwhelmed to find it was just “orderliness”. Although unquestionably a tour de force in setting, I found it just a hard slog to solve with little or no enjoyment. This was unlike the setter’s previous “Captains Log” which earned my vote in the IQ of the Year competition. I fear this one will not figure in my choices this time.

9. For a puzzle where the setting was clearly an amazing feat it feels churlish to criticise but…

   Firstly, and most basically, having the instruction SORT is, in my humble view, simply way insufficient to suggest ‘SORT ALPHABETICALLY’. There are many ways, as most IQ solvers of any experience will testify, to sort letters in a grid, so I do think the instruction was vague and frankly unfair.

   The use of “insurance” in 15ac for NI is also not a fair indicator – INS is the standard abbreviation for insurance; NI is an abbreviation for National Insurance.

   I take my hat off to Harribobs for the skill in filling the grid but as a solving experience I was frustrated and frankly a bit annoyed to have got as far as pretty much completing the grid only to fall because of a too-vague instruction.

10. Caran @7: I hadn’t noticed that 42ac was cycled. A very good point, which might have made the grid fill slightly easier. I’ll bring your comment to the editor’s notice!

    Sorry a number of you found it a slog. I found (bingybing @9) that, as the answers had to be sorted alphabetically, then the SORT instruction in the hidden phrase would be sorted the same way, and had no problem.

    It reminds me of a tie which was awarded at staff meetings, embroidered with the letters IHNTM which was awarded to the first member of staff who said, of a boy who caused a problem to some members of staff, “I Have No Trouble (head)Master”

11. @10 – the preamble says ‘sort answers into alphabetical order’; it doesn’t say ‘sort’. If it said the latter, there would be complaints that it was ridiculously ambiguous. My point is that it is in my view (and I accept it is a personal view) absurd to reward the solver who has battled through what was clearly an extremely difficult gridfill with an unnecessarily ambiguous instruction for the denoument.

12. Anyone who began their Inquisitor career with last week’s transatlantic cable sure got a shock this week.

    Aside from the obvious difficulties, a lot of new (to me) usages – vermouth = IT, south = so?

    Fortunately, there’s a cap on how long I can persist with a puzzle…

13. I am duly impressed by the final brilliance, but it was too brilliant for me. After picking away at the grid for days, I’d filled only the bottom half without feeling I had enough surplus letters to make a stab at the hidden instruction, and sort of lost the will to live. Admiring congratulations to everyone who made it to the end!

14. Flabbergasted! Thanks so much for the blog Hihoba. We wondered who would be compiling it this week. There were times during the solve that we wondered if we would have to give up – not something you can do if you are blogging!

    We had all the grid filled apart from two clues. We decided to carry on with sorting the diagonals alphabetically but it seemed unlikely that it could work. We were amazed that real words appeared and finally we were able to make a guess at the last two clues.

    It took us ages though and meant that we were days behind on our regular Indy puzzles. It was worth it though as far as we were concerned.

    We enjoyed the solve and the PDM – thanks Harrinobs.

15. I didn’t mention my timescale, but like bertandjoyce @14, it took me a lot of sessions over several days chipping away at it. Worth it for the final buzz though!

16. Caron @7, Hihoba @10. Indeed, that was missed by all five of us in solving, three of us twice and one of us on countless occasions. I remember that being one of the last I solved, too.

    Sorry about that. Naughty step.

    John

17. Thanks, John.

18. Thank you all for the clear explanations – much appreciated and very interesting. This was way, way beyond me! – with no checking letters to help solve the interior it was a slog to solve around half the clues cold, with no clear idea how to fill them into the grid. Still, it was enjoyable to try. I would have been totally baffled about how to sort the diagonals (spreadsheets needed? – arrrgh! !) But I managed to finish the previous Great Eastern puzzle which was a great satisfaction to me – obviously more my level. Still, it’s great that there is this variety in the Inquisitors so you never know what to expect – better to be totally baffled sometimes than to be bored!

19. Amateur @18, This was one of the harder (*** difficulty) Inquisitors. I’m glad you completed the (* difficulty) Great Eastern puzzle. This one was set (according to a cryptic message from the Editor) to balance out the ease of the previous offering!

20. Am I the only person who threw caution to the wind and solved this in (very, very lightly inked) pen! I’m not proud of myself, I was a fool to do so.

21. A tough few sessions indeed to crack this one. Marvelled at the grid constructions, and then took far too long to find ORDERLINESS. Was it worth it? Yes, just about.

    It’s like going for long hard hike uphill. You make it to the top, and feel a real sense of achievement; then you look around to admire the view … and it’s not quite as good as you’d hoped. But worth the climb anyway.

    Thanks go to Harribobs (not Harrinobs, as mistyped by Bertandjoyce) for the challenge, and to Hihoba for the blog.

    I did notice the CAROLI, but that’s a minor quibble.
    And I sympathise with those who found the instruction formed from the first letters of the extra words ambiguous – but with only 27 characters to play about with there’s not many left after directing us to INTERNAL NW SE DIAGONALS.

22. I burned a lot of midnight oil on this one and thought I deserved a medal when I’d finally got the grid filled and the message extracted. If not a medal, then at least an unambiguous and relatively simple denouement, but after a frustrating session trying to “sort” the diagonals I gave up. File under Life’s Too Short!

    Congratulations to those who persevered to the end.

     

     

     

23. I spent nearly two weeks on-and-off trying to fill the grid.  I the end I just had to give up.

    I thought it was quite reasonable to use “sort” to mean “sort alphabetically”.  For letters sorting alphabetically is the default thing to do.  Unless told otherwise if you sorted numbers you would sort them in numeric order, if you sorted letters you would sort them in alphabetic order.

    Hats off to Harribobs, Hihoba and all the finishers!

24. I was quite enjoying the challenge of sorting the diagonals without knowing they were going to be in alphabetical order – I won’t say it was a disappointment when I realised they were, but working out where the letters could go whilst still forming real words did add another dimension. The extra layer of difficulty gave a certain masochistic frisson.

25. Apologies to Harribobs! Thanks HolyGhost. Obviously keen to finish before the wifi crashed – that’s our excuse anyway….

26. In the paper this morning the answer looks deceptively simple, but I note that the prize has been won by xxxx. I know I don’t enter, but maybe I’m not alone!

27. An astonishing grid construction but alas, the puzzle’s final step defeated me (along with many other solvers, I suspect). I agree that the instruction was far too vague and more help as to the precise requirements for solving should have been given in the preamble. Almost a great puzzle, and I look forward to the setter’s next offering.

28. I should point out that I’m not the Chris Jones @ post #27 (Hello, namesake).
    I solved all the clues (though I confess to resorting to AN OTHER crossword forum for a little help at the end) but then I really couldn’t be bothered to erase my answers for the final completed grid, but I’d done a few of the simple rows mentally and got the picture.

    It was, as others have stated, a bit of a slog (actually, a long and bloody hard slog) and not my favourite puzzle. But, and it’s a massive ‘but’, I heartily congratulate Harribobs. I don’t know what goes on in his or her mind to devise a crossword of such fearsome complexity – but he or she is clearly a Vulcan, so, as a mere human being, I can’t really expect to be on the same level.

    Well done to all those who persevered – especially any who did it without the help of others.

Comments are closed.